Personal two way communications devices are becoming ever more popular. The use of cellular telephones is becoming more and more a part of everyday life, and the use of cordless telephone devices continues to increase. Also, the introduction of family radio services two way radios into the market place has greatly increased the popularity and usage of two way radios.
It has long been known in the industry to use a headset for receiving sound from such two way communications devices. Such headsets may contain small speakers placed on or near one or both ears of the user for allowing the user to hear audio signals produced by the communications device. Such headsets may be used with a separate detached microphone, or may be used with a microphone attached thereto. The most common configuration for attached microphones is to place the microphone on a boom arm such that the microphone is near the mouth of the user. However, other configurations are known in the art, such as placing the microphone on a cord hanging from the speaker portion, or otherwise connecting the microphone to the headset mechanism.
While many of the prior art headset devices have adequately produced sound to the user and received sound which is produced by the user, anyone who has used such devices knows that the ideal solution has yet to be produced in the prior art. Among the problems that have existed in the prior art are the fact that a microphone boom is often awkward to use and obtrusive and unsightly to use in public, and may be uncomfortable to wear. Also, the positioning of the microphone often is less than ideal to pick up sound from the user. Furthermore, the sound producing devices of the headset often completely occlude the ear or ears of the user, thus inhibiting the user from hearing outside sounds. This can be inconvenient and even dangerous in certain situations. Another problem is that there can be cross talk between the speakers and the microphone. This is a particular problem where the speaker devices are non-occluding. In such arrangements the amount of sound escaping from the speaker devices is often sufficiently great that it can be picked up by the microphone. Another source of cross talk between the speaker and the microphone is mechanical vibration through the headset.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,606,621, issued to Reiter discloses and claims a hearing aid device that has an earpiece apparatus having a somewhat flexible connector between a behind-the-ear portion and an in-the-ear portion. While there are some superficial similarities between an apparatus designed for use with a hearing and an apparatus designed for use with a two way communications device, each of these types of apparatus has its own particular set of problems which have to be overcome in the design thereof. For example, in a hearing aid device it is desirable to capture generally all available ambient sound in a microphone, whereas in a two way device it is desirable to selectively capture the sound of the user's voice while generally rejecting ambient sounds. As specifically stated in the Reiter patent, the inventor there physically separated components in order to reduce electroacoustic feedback in the device which feedback tends to limit the gain in a necessarily high gain device, such as a hearing aid.
Other than acoustically isolating the microphone from the speaker, the positioning of the microphone is not critical in the hearing aid device, because the microphone is intended to capture ambient sound. Indeed, in a hearing aid it would seem to be optimal to have the microphone coincident with the ear canal, such that sound reaching the microphone would be essentially that which would otherwise enter directly into the ear canal. In the case of the Reiter invention, the inventor seems to have sacrificed that desirable aspect in favor of the necessity of solving the problem which the invention addresses.
On the other hand, in a two way communications unit, such as the present invention, the positioning of the microphone is a primary consideration, since it is desirable to capture the user's own voice, while reducing the amount of ambient sound captured. Electroacoustic isolation of the microphone from the speaker is not a great factor in the communications earpiece, because the communications earpiece is not a high gain device.
It would be advantageous to have a personal communications headset type device which is small and easy to use, and also which both picks up sound from the user and produces sound to the user while minimizing cross talk and noise. However, to the inventors' knowledge, all previous attempts to create such a device have failed to optimize one or more of the above considerations.